Thursday, 19 November 2009

L’affaire Suisse: how the US intelligence service bought the French resistanceOn the website of The TimesMatthew Cobb reviews Robert Belot and Gilbert Karpman’s latest account of ‘l’affaire Suisse’. The financial scandal involved the resistance movement Combat led by Henry Frenay, which accepted millions of dollars from the US Office of Strategic Services in return for intelligence about the situation in occupied France. The money was channelled through Switzerland.In The Resistance in France Roderick Kedward examines the activities and success of the Resistance movement in France from 1940 to 1944.

Wine drinking under Napoleon: Josephine’s expensive tastes in wineThe Telegraph reports on a new exhibition devoted to the Empress Josephine’s wine cellar, which opened yesterday at her former residence outside Paris at the château de Malmaison. The inventory of her wine cellar, handwritten in 1814, lists over 13,000 bottles including some of the finest wines and many grands crus from all over the world.

The sale of Cromwell’s bootsA pair of leather boots, which allegedly belonged to Oliver Cromwell, is due to be sold by Dreweatts auctioneers next Thursday, November 26th. The boots are expected to fetch up to £500. They are part of the collection of John Fane, a descendant of the 8th Earl of Westmorland, who fell into possession of the boots when he inherited Wormsley Park. There is no proof that the boots belonged to Cromwell, but a previous owner of the house, Colonel Adrian Scrope, was a member of the Parliamentarian Army during the Civil War and was a signatory on the death warrant to Charles I.Read the article on The Times.